Create stylized fire in Adobe Illustrator

A stylized fire can give your Illustrator projects a vibrant accent. With the pencil tool, you can draw flames and work with colors and gradients to achieve the desired effect. In this tutorial, you'll learn step by step how to create a fiery design in Adobe Illustrator. Whether you're a beginner or have some experience – this guide will clearly and understandably walk you through the process.

Main insights

• Using the pencil tool for drawing flames
• Applying gradients for coloring
• Utilizing different tools for editing the drawing

Step-by-step guide

First, create a new document that will serve as the foundation for your fire design. Go to File > New and name the file something like “Fire”. Select an A4 format in landscape orientation. I recommend setting the color mode to RGB since you are primarily working for digital applications. Confirm your selection with “OK”. This will set up the workspace for your design.

Now that you have your workspace, a new layer is created, which you can find in the layers palette. Usually, the layers palette is already displayed. Rename this layer to “Fire, Gradient”. This renaming helps you keep track of your different drawings.

Now it’s time to select the pencil tool, which you can find on the left toolbar. When you click the icon and hold the mouse button down, a menu with additional tools will appear. Select the pencil tool to begin drawing the flame.

To work precisely, zoom in by holding down the Alt key and scrolling with your mouse wheel. Alternatively, you can use the zoom tool. Hold the Alt key to turn the cursor into a magnifying glass with a minus sign, and click to zoom out. If you want to zoom back in, simply release the Alt key and click.

Now, you are ready to draw the flame. Start at a point and drag your mouse to create a shape. The pencil tool creates paths that you can edit later. Draw a simple shape that represents a flame.

If you encounter problems while drawing and the view is not optimal, Illustrator may behave strangely. Nevertheless, you are now creating a simple fire design. How does it look so far? Perfect!

Now, it’s time to refine the shape. With the direct selection tool, you can access the different anchor points of your flame and move them to refine the shape. Select the anchor points to move them. Adjust your flame path to make the image look more harmonious.

If you want to make further adjustments to the shape, switch to the smoothing tool. This tool allows you to adjust and soften the contours of your flame. Draw along the edges of your flame to make it look more realistic.

To create even more variations, you can adjust the width of the flame at any time. Use the smoothing tool to eliminate irregularities and make the flame smoother. Don’t hesitate to experiment with different shapes and sizes.

Now, let’s focus on coloring. Your path currently has no fill but only an outline. Make sure the fill is set to the foreground before selecting a color. When you click on the color palette, you can choose a suitable color for the fill.

Do you want to remove the outline? Simply click on the outline symbol and select the small icon at the bottom to delete the outline. This way, you can fully focus on the color design of your flame.

Summary – Creating Fire in Adobe Illustrator - Part 1

In this tutorial, you learned how to draw and edit a stylized fire in Adobe Illustrator. From creating a new document to drawing the flame to color design, you have learned the basics to design your own graphic fire.